


The End

by PetrichorPerfume



Series: Rainbow Marbles [113]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aging, Angst, Broken Castiel, Character Death, Demon Deals, Demon Dean Winchester, Djinni & Genies, M/M, Meta, Multi, Multiple Endings, One Happy Ending, One Tragic Ending, Three Endings That Could Go Either Way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrichorPerfume/pseuds/PetrichorPerfume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One story; five endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Was Just a Djinn

**Author's Note:**

> Ending One: It Was Just a Djinn
> 
> Sam wakes up in a field naked and covered in blood.
> 
>  
> 
> Ending Two: The Rescue 
> 
> Sam prays to Gabriel.
> 
>  
> 
> Ending Three: Together
> 
> Sam and Castiel wake up alone.
> 
>  
> 
> Ending Four: Infinite Possibilities
> 
> Sam and Castiel die.
> 
>  
> 
> Ending Five: Happily Ever After
> 
> Everyone gets their happy ending.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wakes up in a field naked and covered in blood.

Sam wakes up in a field naked and covered in blood. There’s a stiffness to his joints when he sits up, and his hands look foreign when he brings them to his face. “Dean!” he shouts. The words sound hollow in the empty expanse of grass and his voice is broken and cracked at the edges, weak and rusty as if it hadn’t been used in a few decades. “Dean!” He tries again. It comes out stronger this time.

 

He rolls over. All he can see is endless waves of green and blue, blue sky. “Cas?” He tries to rise and fails. “Castiel!”

 

He falls back onto his back and sinks into the welcoming grass. Closes his eyes and lets the sun warm him and remembers the best day of his life. “Gabriel?” He whispers. “Gabriel, Cas told me to pray to you... When I needed help, and I need... I need help right now. Please, he promised you’d come when I was ready.” He stands, then opens his eyes and spins around. The field is empty save for him.

 

He starts walking.

 

***

 

By the time he finds a town, four hours later, he’s already stolen a shirt and a pair of overalls. He finds a gas station.

 

“Can I have a newspaper?” He asks the twenty-year old behind the counter.

 

The man laughs. “I hear that at least three times a week, but it’s still funny every time.”

 

“What?”

 

The man points to a row of screens on the wall behind Sam. “There.”

 

Sam turns and stares at the flashing screens for a moment. “What?” He repeats.

 

“You were looking for the news. Plenty of news on the smart screens.”

 

“Look, do you have a telephone or something that I can use?”

 

The man leans forward. “Listen, buddy, I hate to tell you, but the funny limit is generally one joke per person.”

 

Sam frowns. “I’ll just figure it out myself.” He walks over to the screen and studies it until he finds the NEWSPAPER button. He selects the New York Times and the newspaper fills up the entire screen. “July 21st, 2061. That can’t be right.” He turns to the clerk. “Hey, is the date on this right?”

 

The man peers at the screen. “Nah, that’s yesterday’s paper.”

 

Sam bites his tongue. He knows it’s better not to say anything when time traveling. The screen goes dark and he gasps. There’s an old man staring back at him.

 

***

 

He finds a crossroads next and buries a box with his photograph in it. “Crowley,” he shouts. “Crowley, you bastard, come here!”

 

Crowley appears in front of him. “Pleasure, as always. What can I do for you today, Moose?”

 

Sam grabs him by the lapels. “Where’s Dean?”

 

Crowley brushes him off. “How would I know? Last I heard, he was causing havoc in Mexico. That was months ago, though.”

 

Sam backs away. “What?” He sits down hard on the floor.

 

Crowley sits down next to him and lays a gentle hand on his knee. “Dean left with me after he turned. You never saw him again. You kept hunting, though. Sometimes with others, but most of the time on your own. You ran into a djinn.”

 

Sam shakes his head. “A... A djinn?”

 

“Not just any djinn. A special kind of djinn. Keeps their victims alive for decades. Abandons them a field in the middle of nowhere once they have no use for them anymore. They call it mercy. I call it an impracticality.”

 

“But...”

 

Crowley stands. “I can give it back to you, all of it. Not just for ten years, either. For the rest of your life. All I need in return is-”

 

“My soul.”

 

“Got it in one.”

 

Sam thinks for a moment. He could find Castiel, try to start a new life... What was left of it anyway. Castiel, who hadn’t seen him in half a century. Castiel, who could be anywhere. Castiel, who never answered his prayers anyway because Sam had never had a profound bond with anyone and probably never would. He closes his eyes. “Do it.” 


	2. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam prays to Gabriel.

Sam can’t take it anymore. Cas is broken, no, _shattered._ Cracked. Damaged beyond repair. _Ruined._ He doesn’t eat, doesn’t speak, doesn’t sleep. He just lies there and _takes_ it as Dean pushes him around and folds his limbs like a little doll and fucks him and cuddles him and talks to him as if he’s still _Cas_ even though it’s clear by now that nobody’s home.

 

He doesn’t want to do this, but he will. For Castiel’s sake.

 

“Gabriel,” he whispers into the darkness when he’s sure Dean’s not listening. “Please, Gabriel, I need your help, _please-_ ”

 

The air shifts as Gabriel materializes at the foot of the bed. “What’s up S-” His voice cuts off as his gaze falls upon Cas. “What happened?” He demands.

 

“Gab-”

 

“Why didn’t you call earlier?” Gabriel shouts as he gathers Cas in his arms. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

 

Sam starts to cry. Why didn’t he call earlier? Why didn’t he drop to his knees and start to pray the second he’d learnt that there was an _archangel_ out there, willing to help them? For that matter, why hadn’t he fought harder? Why had he left Dean to die in the first place?

 

Gabriel curses. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Sam. I didn’t... I’m going to take you both far away from here, okay? I’m going to fix you both.”

 

Sam starts to cry harder. He doesn’t want to go.

 

Gabriel lifts his fingers and snaps.


	3. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Castiel wake up alone.

In the end, it’s Dean who saves them.

 

Dean, who leaves one morning with a note that says “I’m sorry,” in all caps and an air of finality that says he’s never coming back.

 

“What do we do now?” Cas asks.

 

Sam holds out a tentative hand. Cas takes it. “We do the same thing we’ve always done; we figure it out together.” 


	4. Infinite Possibilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Castiel die.

Sam awakens to the sound of church bells. When he sits up, he finds himself in an ornately furnished parlor sitting in an armchair next to Death and Castiel.

 

“I’m dead,” he says.

 

“Quite,” Death says. He pours Sam a finger of whiskey and smiles pleasantly at him.

 

Sam takes a deep steadying breath and downs the liquor in one shot. “I know you can’t tell me where I’m going-”

 

“On the contrary. You, Sam Winchester, will be telling me where you wish to go.”

 

Sam makes a small noise of protest and looks towards Cas for some sort of guidance. Castiel turns away with a tiny sigh of something Sam can’t quite place. Regret, maybe? Relief? Resignation?

 

“Your friend has already made his decision. He cannot help you make yours.”

 

Sam closes his eyes. They could both choose Heaven. They could both choose Hell. Sam could choose Hell, and Cas Heaven, or Cas could choose Hell and Sam Heaven.

 

He thinks for a long moment, makes his decision, changes his mind, then changes it back.

 

“I’ve made my choice.”

 

Sam feels the air shift around him and a horrible thought takes hold of him and settles deep within his soul. _What if I’ve made the wrong decision?_

 

He opens his eyes. 


	5. Happily Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets their happy ending.

Dean doesn’t grow soft in his old age; he grows human. Within ten years, the burning passion he’d felt at the start of his new life settled down into glowing embers and he became _human_ again. Human, with demonic powers, human, with black eyes and invisible horns and leathery wings and a tiny tail, human, with a short temper and a tendency to snap and yell when things are done wrong, human, with slightly lower inhibitions than he’d had the first time around, human, with a painful inability to hide his feelings. Human, with a greater than average number of flaws.

 

The worst thing about being human had been the guilt and the shame of knowing what he’d done to the two people he loved more than anything. He’d helped Sam and Cas back to health, pieced them back together again little by little until they were mostly whole. He’d bought them a car and given them each an untraceable debit card with a hundred thousand dollars on it and a promise to provide for them for the rest of their lives. And they’d taken the cards and left without saying goodbye.

 

And driven around the block and found him weeping on the curb.

 

“You idiot,” Cas had said, stepping out of the car. “Thinking we’d leave you, after all this time.” He’d walked over to Dean and draped his coat over the demon’s shoulders and Dean had _broken_ because he’d never thought he’d see either of them again, or smell Castiel’s perfume or Sam’s conditioner as long as he lived.

 

“Then why did you leave?” He’d asked.

 

“Penance,” Castiel had said, extending his hand for Dean to take. “So you could forgive yourself.”

 

They’d taken him home after that, and laid him out and made love to him and promised never to leave him ever again.

 

And that had only been the first of many difficult moments to come. They’d all had trouble trusting Dean not to hurt them when they made love, and Sam and Cas had been skittish in the beginning and hadn’t wanted to sleep with him most nights. They both got terrified when something went wrong, and immediately fell to their knees and begged him to forgive him after he’d gotten pissed about a flood in the bathroom that was nobody’s fault except maybe the plumber who had first put in the pipes seventy years ago, but honestly who could blame the guy for installing something that had lasted nearly a century?

 

Cas still played with toys sometimes and still liked Lucky Charms and making faces on his pancakes, and Sam still preferred bubble baths to showers, but Dean didn’t mind that some of the symptoms of their brokenness lingered, because Cas was adorable with his stuffed animals and Sam was too.

 

The first time Castiel had hesitantly asked Dean to do a scene with him, Dean had panicked and said no. Cas had asked him to reconsider, and Dean had. Sam had been there to watch and make sure that nothing went wrong, but in the end it was Dean who panicked and safeworded out. Cas had pulled the safety lever on his restraints, freed himself, and they’d spent the rest of the day comforting Dean and assuring him that everything was all right.

 

They’d tried again next week, and Dean had handled it fine and so had Cas. Once or twice a month, they played around with the things Sam and Cas had learned to enjoy, and sometimes one of them had a flashback or a panic attack, but that was what safewords and aftercare were for.

 

Sometimes they fought. They’d quickly learned that they had a tendency of fighting dirty, so they set some ground rules in the very beginning that minimized the chances of small fights blowing up into huge fights and of huge fights developing into something that could break them apart. They never went to bed angry.

 

Dean had stopped their aging eventually and turned back the clock to rid them of the scars that had served as a reminder of his abuse. Dean had started a garden and Cas had taken up writing and Sam had earned a degree from an online college.

 

One day, Dean wanders onto the patio to find Cas hard at work at his laptop. Sam is sitting beside him, reading a book. He looks up when Dean arrives and they share a tender look. “What are you writing, sweetheart?” He asks Castiel as he gives his lover a gentle kiss.

 

Cas smiles softly against Dean’s lips. “I’m not sure, yet. All I know is the ending.”

 

Dean hums. “Oh, and what’s that?”

 

“And then they lived happily ever after.”

 

Dean grins. “I like it.”

 

“Me too,” Sam says. “But it’s missing something.”

 

Cas tilts his head. “What?”

 

Dean answers for his brother. “The End.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who has read/commented on/left kudos for/bookmarked this series!


End file.
